Person: Hill, Megan
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Hill, Megan
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Publication Recommendations for Allocation and Administration of American Rescue Plan Act Funding for American Indian Tribal Governments(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 2021) Henson, Eric; Hill, Megan; Jorgensen, Miriam; Kalt, JosephThe American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides the largest infusion of federal funding for Indian Country in the history of the United States. More than $32 billion dollars is directed toward assisting American Indian nations and communities as they work to end and recover from the devastating COVID19 pandemic – which was made worse in Indian Country precisely because such funding is long overdue. In this policy brief, we set out recommendations which we hope will promote the wise and productive allocation of ARPA funds to the nation’s 574 federally recognized American Indian tribes. We see ARPA as a potential “Marshall Plan” for the revitalization of Indian nations. The Act holds the promise of materially remedying at least some of the gross, documented, and long-standing underfunding of federal obligations and responsibilities in Indian Country. Yet, fulfilling that promise requires that the federal government expeditiously and wisely allocate ARPA funds to tribes, and that tribes efficiently and effectively deploy those funds to maximize their positive impacts on tribal communities.Publication Federal COVID‐19 Response Funding for Tribal Governments: Lessons from the CARES Act(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 2020) Henson, Eric; Hill, Megan; Jorgensen, Miriam; Kalt, JosephThe federal response to the COVID‐19 pandemic has played out in varied ways over the past several months. For Native nations, the CARES Act (i.e., the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) has been the most prominent component of this response to date. Title V of the Act earmarked $8 billion for tribes and was allocated in two rounds, with many disbursements taking place in May and June of this year. This federal response has been critical for many tribes because of the lower socio‐economic starting points for their community members as compared to non‐Indians. Even before the pandemic, the average income of a reservation‐resident Native American household was barely half that of the average U.S. household. Low average incomes, chronically high unemployment rates, and dilapidated or non‐existent infrastructure are persistent challenges for tribal communities and tribal leaders. Layering extremely high coronavirus incidence rates (and the effective closure of many tribal nations’ entire economies2) on top of these already challenging circumstances presented tribal governments with a host of new concerns. In other words, at the same time tribal governments’ primary resources were decimated (i.e., the earnings of tribal governmental gaming and non‐gaming enterprises dried up), the demands on tribes increased. They needed these resources to fight the pandemic and to continue to meet the needs of tribal citizens.Publication Recommendations for the Allocation and Administration of American Rescue Plan Act Funding for American Indian Tribal Governments(Harvard Kennedy School, 2021-12) Kalt, Joseph; Henson, Eric; Hill, Megan; Jorgensen, MiriamThe American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides the largest infusion of federal funding for Indian Country in the history of the United States. More than $32 billion dollars is directed toward assisting American Indian nations and communities as they work to end and recover from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic – which was made worse in Indian Country precisely because such funding is long overdue. Below, we set out recommendations which we hope will promote the wise and productive allocation of ARPA funds to the nation’s 574 federally recognized American Indian tribes. We see ARPA as a potential “Marshall Plan” for the revitalization of Indian nations. The Act holds the promise of materially remedying at least some of the gross, documented, and long-standing underfunding of federal obligations and responsibilities in Indian Country. Yet, fulfilling that promise requires that the federal government expeditiously and wisely allocate ARPA funds to tribes, and that tribes efficiently and effectively deploy those funds to maximize their positive impacts on tribal communities. Toward these ends: • To enable tribes to recover and emerge stronger from the pandemic, we recommend wide scope be provided for tribes to invest COVID-19 relief funds in their basic physical, governmental, and educational infrastructures. • To facilitate consultation and promote sound policy development under ARPA, we recommend the establishment of a Treasury/Tribal ARPA Advisory Panel consisting of knowledgeable experts. • To provide guidance and reduce uncertainty regarding permissible ARPA spending and processes, we recommend the creation of a formal system of Tribal/ARPA Determination, Opinion, and Advisory Letters. • To provide much-needed technical assistance to tribes, we recommend the creation of a “hub and web” network of Treasury/Tribal ARPA Tech Centers, with the Treasury Department as the central hub, providing funding and serving as the central node responsible for coordinating and communicating with a set of discipline-spanning Centers. • To ensure maximum community benefit is derived from ARPA funding, we recommend that tribal governments adopt best-practice systems for prioritizing, planning, budgeting, contracting, implementing, and sustaining ARPA-funded projects and programs. • To allocate the ARPA funds dedicated to tribal governments, we recommend a three-part formula that uses data-ready drivers of apportionment and puts 40% weight on each tribe’s population of enrolled citizens, 30% weight on each tribe’s total of tribal government and tribal enterprise employees, and 30% weight on each tribe’s share of Indian Country’s coronavirus infections.Publication Emerging Stronger than Before: Guidelines for the Federal Role in American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes’ Recovery from the COVID‐19 Pandemic(Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 2020) Henson, Eric; Hill, Megan; Jorgensen, Miriam; Kalt, JosephThe COVID‐19 pandemic has wrought havoc in Indian Country. While the American people as a whole have borne extreme pain and suffering, and the transition back to “normal” will be drawn out and difficult, the First Peoples of America arguably have suffered the most severe and most negative consequences of all. The highest rates of positive COVID‐19 cases have been found among American Indian tribes, but that is only part of the story. Even before the pandemic, the average household income for Native Americans living on Indian reservations was barely half the U.S. average. Then the pandemic effectively shut down the economies of many tribal nations. In the process, tribal governments’ primary sources of the funding – which are needed to fight the pandemic and to meet citizens’ needs – have been decimated. As with the rest of the U.S., emergency and interim support from the CARES Act and other federal measures have helped to dampen the social and economic harm of the COVID‐19 crisis in Indian Country. Yet this assistance has come to the country’s 574 federally recognized Indian tribes with litigation‐driven delay and counterproductive strings attached, and against a pre‐ pandemic background characterized by federal government underfunding and neglect – especially as compared to the funding provided and attention paid to state and local governments.